Plancherel_Rotach Asymptotics for q-Orthogonal Polynomials

We establish the Plancherel-Rotach-type asymptotics around the largest zero (the soft edge asymptotics) for some classes of polynomials satisfying three-term recurrence relations with exponentially increasing coefficients. As special cases, our results include this type of asymptotics for q^{-1}-Hermite polynomials of Askey, Ismail and Masson, q-Laguerre polynomials, and the Stieltjes-Wigert polynomials. We also introduce a one parameter family of solutions to the q-difference equation of the Ramanujan function.